Community Blog: Player’s Guide To Herbalism

Herbalism is a brand new skill in The Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat Game Pack. With it, your Sims are able to identify new wild plants and brew potent herbal remedies on the grill and stove. This guide will show you how to identify wild plants, and how to brew your first herbal remedy!

Granite Falls is home to a variety of wild plants that grow in the campgrounds, the forest, and the mountains. While your Sim is on vacation, keep an eye out for bushes or little clusters of mushrooms that you can harvest. If you see one, click on it!

Plants need to be identified before they can be used to brew herbal remedies. Sims can eat unidentified plants, but do so at your own risk! There are many toxic plants in Granite Falls that can have nasty effects such as making your Sim Tense, or even worse—making them bladder fail.

To identify a plant, click on it in your Sim’s inventory and select “Attempt to Identify”. Your Sim will harvest the plant and take a little nibble; if successful they’ll figure out what plant it is! This will build your Sim’s Herbalism skill even if they fail to identify it.

By reading the plant descriptions you can find out which plants are required for each remedy.

Once you gathered enough plants, (and maybe even some insects) it’s time to brew an Herbal Remedy. These can be brewed on any grill or stove. New recipes are unlocked as your Sim’s Herbalism skill increases. But remember, your Sim must identify a plant before it can be used!

Sims with a higher herbalism skill level can create better quality and more potent herbal remedies. Brewing herbal remedies also builds Herbalism skill. If you use one Sim to identify a bunch of plants, and have the same Sim brew a bunch of remedies with the plants he/she collected, pretty soon they’ll be an Herbal Master!

There are tons of herbal remedies for your Sim to discover and create. Some are even made with toxic plants and insects. Let’s take a look at just a few things that this Game Pack’s herbal remedies can do.

Insect Repellent Liniment: Made from Noxious Elderberry and basil, this remedy prevents insect bite, and there are a lot of bugs out in Granite falls, particularly the pesky mosquito!

Sadness Alleviation Lotion: If you looked up “Negative Nancy” in the dictionary, would your Sim be the first result? If so, this is the herbal remedy for them. Brew together some elderberries and a firefly and apply to the Sim’s skin. If the potion is high enough quality, it can even remove those sad buffs entirely!

Fireleaf Extract: This is probably my favorite herbal “remedy” in the Game Pack. Made from Poison Fireleaf, Morel Mushrooms, and crushed Fire Ant, this fiery elixir can be applied to hundreds of objects in The Sims 4. Once applied to an object, this remedy will cause unbearable itchiness to the next Sim who uses that object! Prank neighbors, friends, and of course— enemies.

The Herbalism skill is a great way to tell new, exciting stories with that weren’t previously possible in The Sims 4. Here’s two ideas that we’ve been playing with internally at The Sims Studio.

Sim Survivalist Challenge: See if your Sim can survive off the land in Granite Falls! Go to the game options and turn off autonomy, then go to the forest. Can your Sim survive a whole week in the woods only eating wild plants and the remedies they brew? Fish and insects will give them a needed boost of protein. I hear there’s a hermit somewhere in the woods who’s growing a nice garden with tasty vegetables to eat.

Fireleaf House Party: Go to Granite Falls and find some Poison Fireleaf and Morel Mushrooms. Most importantly, find as many Fire Ants as you can, since you can’t find them outside of Granite Falls. Once your vacation is over, you can go home and plant the Poison Fireleaf and Morel Mushrooms in a planter box or garden pot to grow even more. Brew all these ingredients into as many Fireleaf Extracts as you can. Sprinkle everything in your house with the concoction, then invite people over for a “fun” little house party. As your guests use your furniture, they’ll all get horribly itchy and start doing the scratch dance! You won’t be able to upload your itchy house to the Gallery, since we decided to wipe out all traces of Fireleaf whenever something is uploaded to avoid potential pranking of other players.

Hopefully this introduction gave you some ideas about how to play with the new Herbalism skill. We’re really excited to see what players come up with!

Alexis founded SimsVIP in 2011 right after Aliens abducted her from Bella Goth’s house. Sims has been a part of her life for 17 years, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. She also wants to live in a world full of Llamacorns. Grilled Cheese anyone?

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